Photographer's Journal - Case 14856 - Entry 1

Dear Journal,

Why did I answer that want ad? I should know better than to fall for flashy words and phrases like adventure, crime solving, great pay and flexible hours. I could have been photographing flower pots in Better Homes & Gardens, but oh no, I had to be different. Why do I always seem to need to take everything that next step? Sure lots of people go to school to be professional photographers but who does their thesis on training monkeys to aid in the set up and break down processes thereby allowing the photographer to concentrate fully on the work? I'm such an idiot. A cold idiot....with a highly trained monkey shoved near my balls to help keep us warm.

I should have known that this was the wrong gig for me the first time I went on assignment with this damned Forensic Sherpa. Before arriving I remember being so excited to start photographing my first real murder case. That little twinkle in my eye quickly dropped to the ground, picked up a shovel and buried itself alive when we got to "base camp" a.k.a The Frozen Beaver Motel in Kerhanapachookiebits, Alaska. I had to guess that the person working the desk was a woman only because the picture behind her showed a married couple holding hands and she had the least amount of facial hair. She was the very reason for the phrase "handsome woman". She stared coldly at my monkey as I filled out my registration card. The monkey would not leave me alone the remainder of the stay.

I remember trying to use the excitement I toted with me at the beginning of this trip to sooth my frozen body that first day. We hiked for miles and miles searching for flannel fibers and couch lint in a land so harsh nary a bear had been seen in a century. Why were we helping a town of fifteen people solve a murder? They knew who did it. They told us. We stayed for six months trying to find evidence because witnesses and a confession just aren't good enough for the Sherpa.

We never did solve that case and all I walked away with were a few shots of the monkey using his urine to spell my name in the snow and the phone number of a burly figure who couldn't speak. Now here we are again. Scaling a mountain, dusting ice for prints and digging for fingernails in areas recently rearranged by avalanche slides. I had to put on a happy face when they lopped off my frost bitten fingers today. I didn't want to but conditions are bad enough and I don't need that Sherpa leaving me behind again like in Mongolia (even if it was only a joke). Just think, if I can tough it out a few more days we'll be back at the Oily Eel Motel. We'll warm ourselves by the fire and sip whiskey from gravy boats. We'll try and make light of the fact the room is half full of mountain men so lost in instinctual behavior they have the look of dogs staring at you with their head tilted to the side and sprouting a pink warning between their legs.

I must go and make sure the monkey is still receiving air in the crotch pocket.